If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, nothings will be impossible to you.

Author: allthingspossible15

The remaining documents of our Dossier came in the mail today. Which means our Dossier is complete! We will be submitted to Baby C’s country the week of February 26. Which means we will be traveling very soon. We are going to have to make 3 trips to Baby C’s country which is going to be extremely difficult. However Chris and I are willing to move mountains for Baby C.

This past Friday we got our approval from immigration. This is huge! So now we send our final documents off to our state capital to be Apostilled. Once we receive them back we can submit them to Baby C’s country. Which means we will be submitted this month. Then we wait for our travel dates.

We are so very excited! Baby boy we are getting closer and closer to bringing you home.

Patiently or should I say impatiently waiting. I have not really made my mind up yet which one it is. We are still waiting on our approval from immigration. Today makes day 47. From the recent trends of other families getting their approvals or letters that more information is needed the wait seems to be under 60 days. So we possibly have another week or more of waiting for our approval. Once we do get our approval we have to get it to Tallahassee to be Apostilled with a few other documents which usually takes a week or week and half to get back. Depending on our timeline Chris may have to drive up to Tallahassee which is about 5 hours from us. We are in a crunch to be submitted in Baby C’s country no later then March 7th. So that being said now would be a great time for prays, positive thoughts anything that might help.

We have been doing the slow migration in the house. Our guestroom is being converted into Baby C’s room and our office is going to be our new guestroom/office. I am loving being able to decorate the nursery. I am not loving having to clean out these 2 rooms. I have no idea when we accumulated so much stuff. Once Baby C’s room is complete I will post a picture for you all.

Soccer season is finally over! It’s always strange to me when soccer ends I feel like ok where am I supposed to be, what are we doing. It’s like we get so used to running all the time when it ends you are relieved but kind of feel a little lost. I know that sounds crazy but it’s always a strange feeling. However I am super proud of Morgan. She was an amazing Team Capitan and she really was able to triumph after her concussion.

The flu has found it’s first and hopefully last victim for our household. Poor Chris feel ill this past weekend. I am trying my hardest to take care of him and he is fighting it tooth and nail. He is so scared of me getting sick and losing some more of my “maternity leave” he does not want my help. Hopefully he will figure out soon enough he’s getting the help if he likes it or not. You would think the man would realize this by now. It is sweet on the other hand of him to be worried about me even though he is sick. I am truly blessed to have such an amazing husband who will always protect me.

I hope next week I will be able to write with the news of our approval. So fingers, toes, legs, arms, eyes, whatever you want to cross for good luck do it.

Last night as my family and I sat at the Candle Lite Christmas Eve Service it hit me. I realized at that moment in time it was actually Christmas already for Baby C. My mind began to wonder about our baby boy. He has no Daddy, no Momma, no sister, no Grandparents, no one to love him and to be with him on Christmas. No one to help him realize the magic of Christmas and all the miracles that truly do come with this season. It has hurt my heart to think this is the 2nd Christmas he is alone. However this WILL be his last Christmas alone and that thought does bring joy to my heart. Even though we have very limited information on Baby C he is apart of our everyday lives. And next Christmas he is going to be showered with lots of love.

Many of you may want to know the updates of bringing Baby C home. Chris and I had our Fingerprints done last week for Immigration. Which is GREAT news! Immigration has had our Home study for a few weeks. And now that they have our fingerprints we hopefully will receive our approval letter soon. Getting the approval letter soon is the part that we need that Christmas Miracle. The turn around time for them was about 75 days. So fingers crossed it will not take that long. Once we get that approval letter we can submit that one last piece of paper to the country Baby C is in then we wait for our travel dates. We are hoping and praying to travel in the Spring time. There are always constant changes and delays. So we have tried to expect the unexpected. Which seems to be harder for me then Chris. I am the organized one who likes to plan. Chris is more easy breezy go with the flow guy. When I think about this whole process I think about it in 3 parts. We are not in the home stretch of part 1 just yet. But we are very close. Once we get that approval letter from Immigration I would consider us in that Home stretch for Part 1 of this journey.

Wonderful news we should have our Homestudy back any day. Our Homestudy draft was approved and the final document has been signed by all the powers that be. So our next step which now seems to be the longest is getting the approval from immigration. As it stands right now the wait for their approval is 8 to 10 weeks. We are looking for a miracle that the time frame gets a little better or does not get longer. Every little delay even if it’s a day is a delay in bringing Baby C home.

There are a lot of families in Eastern Europe right now being able to bring their little ones home for Christmas. These families could use all the prayers and love right now. If anyone would like to help any of these families you can always go to Reeces Rainbow and look under the pages Almost There or Traveling Now. This is where you can get to know a little about the families.

On our home front the past month has been a little crazy. Soccer picked up in full swing. The Wednesday before thanksgiving Morgan was playing in a game and got tackled yes tackled by 2 girls. Morgan slammed her head in the ground extremely hard. Morgan did end up with a concussion and has not been able to play soccer in 2 weeks now. The concussion was on the down slide of a nasty cold for Morgan. Poor thing had it rough. The week of Thanksgiving Chris caught the cold Morgan had and was down pretty much most of that week. I was feeling awesome like yes finally these 2 are not getting me sick this time. Well haha that was my mistake Sunday it hit me like a ton of bricks. I have been down most of this week. And of course my cold turned into a wonderful sinus infection. But I think I am turning the corner I have more energy today. Yay.

We have also been trying to get the house decorated for my favorite time of the year. And yes this Christmas Baby C will have a stocking hung with the rest of his families along with a few presents. He will be here in our hearts just like he is everyday.
XoXo

I am sitting here with happy tears completely blown away. The generosity that has been shown to help bring Baby C home is a true blessing. Today we had some very kind and wonderful souls donate to our FSP on Reece’s Rainbow. Chris and I want to thank you what a loving heart you all have.

We am extremely honored to be able to share our journey with all of you.

I wish I could start this off and say the last few weeks have been uneventful but that would be a lie. The past few weeks have been busy from all fronts. First things first we FINALLY had our dreaded Homestudy. I was a nervous wreck the week leading up to it. We all became cleaning machines. Not that we have a dirty house but we wanted everything to be perfect. Plus we had no idea what to expect. Everything that I expected the Homestudy to be was completely wrong. I was honestly worried for nothing. Our case worker was the best. She made the process comfortable and easy. We are extremely lucky to have her on our side. We are currently waiting to receive the Homestudy back then it will be sent off to Immigration. So for now we wait…

While all the Homestudy preparation was happening Morgan was going through soccer tryouts with her school. I am happy to announce not only did Morgan make the JV Soccer team she is the Captain of her team. So we are back in the swing of soccer practice everyday. Then to top it off Morgan FINALLY got her Driving permit. Don’t worry if you are on the streets of Fl. We are keeping her confined to parking lots then we will graduate her to our neighborhood then to the roads. I think we are even going to get her signed up for driving school. To be honest I am a little scared to teach her how to drive so Chris may need to take that over.

Tomorrow is Halloween which I seem to have a strange feeling this year. A feeling of sadness and excitement. We are excited that this will be the last Halloween Baby C will be in an orphanage. Next year we will be joining the Trick or Treaters once again.

This is the little face I see every time I pick my phone up. This is the face that is driving Chris and I to work so hard to get all this paperwork and running around complete. This little face has no idea he has a big sister that can not wait for him to come home. Morgan told me all she wants to do is hold him. Morgan telling me that really touched my heart. She has accepted this little face as her brother!

As far as our Great paper chase it looks like it is coming to an end. Our Homestudy is this weekend. Once that is complete then we can turn everything into USCIS. Looking at all the boxes checked off but the few for our homestudy are gratifying.

I am constantly thinking and wondering about Baby C. For some reason this past week I have had a few sleepless nights hoping our baby boy is ok. Praying he is ok and that something inside of him knows he has a family working hard to bring him home. I can honestly say we love this little one and we will do whatever we have to bring Baby C home.

This past week we continued to get those boxes checked off. We really just have a few left 1 being we had to redo our FBI fingerprints. We had them done already with the results back but we found out we needed the results back on the FBI watermark. So that being said since tomorrow is a holiday we should have them back Tuesday to then turn around and mail them off to DC to be Apostilled. We are also still waiting for our Homestudy. Which is a huge piece to the puzzle. Once we get these missing pieces we are complete with the boxes. Well that’s just As far as our great paper chase goes. I was really hoping we would be able to submit all of our documents before the shutdown in Eastern Europe from 12/10 – 1/15. But unfortunately that is not looking very realistic at this point. Before we can submit in EE we have to turn our Homestudy into USCIS and the turn around is about 8 weeks. I keep reminding myself God has a plan. Everything will workout how it’s supposed to.

This little face is why we are working so hard. This face is what is driving us to get those boxes checked off. Whatever we have to do to bring Baby C home as fast as possible we will do.

It’s been a few weeks since my last update. Things around here have been pretty crazy. Lets just start with the obvious Hurricane Irma. The morning before Hurricane Irma made her lovely debut I woke up with an awful soar throat. However seeing we needed to get things done around the house there was no down time at all. Sunday morning we started to get rain and slight winds. While I felt absolutely awful. My sore throat now is accompanied by nonstop coughing, aching body, fever, pretty much everything you don’t want especially during a hurricane. The hurricane did end up turning and it was coming for us. All the reports all week said it would be more east but that was not the case anymore. About 8pm Morgan and myself did end up in our “safe room” which is really the hallway outside Morgan’s bedroom. Chris was manning down the fort in the living room. The weather got extremely bad and it was pretty scary listening to the wind and rain. Our power did unfortunately go off. All day Sunday it flickered but Sunday night it finally went out. Monday morning when daylight came we really got to go outside in the yard to access the damage we were pleasantly surprised. No major damage at all. Our power was out for a good 24 hours. Our cell phones did not work well at all VERY spotty service for about a week. And the ultimate worst part about everything for our wonderful 15 year old was no cable or internet for 13 days!. YES 13 whole days! Chris and I thought Morgan was going to literally dye of boredom. It also did not help that during that time there was no school for a week so she was home all day. I am actually still not recovered from the crazy cold I had. I still have this cough and a runny nose. Hard to recover and get some down time when you are trying to put your house back together. But all and all our town was extremely fortunate it could of been a lot worse.

On to another note during the past few weeks I never thought I would get some much satisfaction in checking boxes off. We seem to be moving along quite well and accomplishing many things with bringing home Baby C. We have sent papers to Immigration and over sea’s. We are almost complete with our Home study packet which was pretty big. Just a few items left to go. I am always questioning myself trying to make sure I am doing everything correct. I am probably driving our facilitator Nancy from handofhelpinadoption.org crazy. But she is the best always is extremely helpful and answers all my questions. Every box we check off means one step closer to Baby C. So check check check……

We are trying to get to you as fast as we can Baby boy. You have a family here that already loves you very much!!!